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View From the Pew: The Political Consequences of Church
Organizational Structure
The Republican National Committee (RNC) recently asked those Catholics and
Southern Baptists that support President George W. Bush to send in copies of their parish
directories so that the RNC could send voter outreach information to church members
(Associated Press 2004, and Kirkpatrick 2004). In contrast, the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) hired a minister to coordinate religious voter outreach (Gorski 2004).
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We should not be surprised that religion plays a significant role in this year’s presidential
campaign, given what scholars know about how religious beliefs, attitudes, church
attendance, and denominational affiliation or membership influence individual voting
behavior (see Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee 1954; Calhoun-Brown 1996; Gilbert
1993; Guth and Green 1991; Jelen 1991; Layman 1997; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Guadet
1948, 21-23; Leege 1988; Leege and Kellstedt 1993; Liebman and Wuthnow 1983;
Manza and Brooks 1997; Regnereus, Sikking, and Smith 1999; and Smidt 1989).
Some scholars argue that churches possess an organizational advantage when it
comes to mobilizing adherents for political action. For example, Verba, Schlozman, and
Brady (1995, 273) note that churches help their members develop and sharpen civic skills
by offering a variety of activities ranging from serving on a church council to
participating in music programs. Others assume that churches automatically have access
to a valuable set of resources such as money, an adequate facility for hosting political and
nonpolitical activities, and a set of professional church leaders that are capable of
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The DNC’s hired minister resigned two weeks later. On August 9, 2004, The Denver Post reported that
“the Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson, two weeks after being hired as the Democratic National Committee’s
first director of religious outreach, resigned last week amid criticism she had sided with an atheist who
unsuccessfully sued to remove ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance” (Gorski 2004).
Convention